Current technology has produced a number of specially shaped cables including flat, layered or ribbon cables.
Such cables comprise a plurality of electrical conductors arranged side-by side, and they are frequently used in many kinds of industry. They are generally fitted with connectors so that the cables can readily be connected and disconnected to other equipment.
There is therefore a requirement for connectors suitable for fixing to such cables. Such connectors must be capable of being male, female, or hermaphrodite according to the needs of the equipment with which they are to be mated.
There has also been considerable work, on an international scale, to define connector standards to enable equipment having connector portions made by a first manufacturer to be mated with equipment having corresponding connector portions made by a second manufacturer, with the manufacturers frequently being located in different countries or in different continents.
Unfortunately, there is no guarantee that connectors made to conform with one set of standards, e.g. concerning the pitch of electrical contacts, will match cables made to conform to some other set of standards. Thus, it is not uncommon for the pitch of the conductors in a cable to be different from the pitch of the contacts in a connector to be fitted to the end of the cable.
Further, connectors may need to be fitted to various cables of different pitches, so that the cable pitch is sometimes greater than the connector pitch, sometimes equal therto, and sometimes smaller than the connector pitch.
To cope with this problem, electrical contacts have been devised (together with connectors including such contacts) where the contacts include an elongate deformable member having a portion at a first end suitable for mating to a corresponding connector, and a portion at a second or opposite end suitable for connection to the conductor of a ribbon cable. The intermediate portion of the member is a deformable rod whereby a row of first ends can be arranged at the pitch of the connector, while a row of second ends can simultaneously be arranged at the pitch of conductors in the cable.
This results in the contacts being progressively more and more deformed going away from a minimally deformed region of the connector.
While a connector of the type described above serves the purpose of matching two different conductor pitches, it suffers from two drawbacks: firstly there is a mechanical problem of obtaining an even pitch by applying a progressively different amount of twist to the deformable members; and secondly there is a relatively small range of pitch differences over which twisting can be effective, before the amount of twist required of the extreme deformable members becomes excessive.
Preferred embodiments of the present invention provide a contact and a connector using a plurality of such contacts, in which any conductor offset between two limit values is relatively easy to obtain, and wherein contacts providing extreme value offsets are not at any disadvantage to contacts with substantially no offset.